5 THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT AMERICA BY LEAVING | An American Who moved to the Czech Republic

do I wanna do okay I'm just gonna say it [Music] I went from the future I just wanted to say before you see this next clip I filmed it at the end originally but I wanted to put it at the beginning because it's very true problem is I was very not awake when I first started this video and very awake when I ended it so you have groggy Gwen and way too excited for her own good Gwen there's a jump just a warning thank you for watching I have 27 subscribers now which doesn't sound like a lot but if like I imagine 27 people in this room just listening to me talk I'd probably vomit so thank you for subscribing if you're not subscribed please do so it's finished now so this video is going to be a little bit different than the vlogs that I have been doing they're fun I like them I think you guys like them you seem to I'm going to keep doing them but just because we're in quarantine I can't vlog anything besides me bitching in the morning and then baking something at night and like you don't really want to watch me or bake and I don't want to eat anything that I'm gonna bake anymore because a girl's can so we're not doing that today today I thought that I would sit down and knock off one of the ideas that I have for a sit-down video and this video is going to be well you already know because you clicked on it this video is going to be 5 things that I've learned about America since moving abroad I do just want to start off by saying these are my opinions based on my experience if you've had a different experience and have thus formed a different opinion and disagree with me let me know leave a comment let's talk about it that would be cool but I'm not trying to offend you I've come to these opinions by opening myself up to the world by moving abroad and I would love to continue to shape and form them and a discussion in the comments is a great way to do that so let's help each other by commenting on this video with that being said let's get into number you know let me get my list your girlhood research so I need some assistance with number one so help me fill in the blank America is the home of convenient the answers can be its convenience Americans are obsessed with convenience you can get things that you need I say need loosely mostly desire within hours of wanting them just speaking from personal experience when I lived in Philadelphia I multiple times ordered something on Amazon at 8 a.m. and then received it at my door at 2 p.m. and I didn't need it it was just convenient to order it so I did so let's say that you've just moved into a new apartment like just moved into a new apartment your distant friends cousins brothers boyfriend who has a pickup truck has left after unloading all of your into your apartment and you need a few things for the night you can't find your favorite pajamas so you need to go out and find your pajamas you need to take a shower but you don't have any you know shampoo conditioner body wash so you need that you need some food for the night because you don't have any of that and you've run out of your prescriptions so you need that and you also need some cleaning supplies so that's five things that you need now in America the way that I would solve those desires is to go to a store like Target or Walmart where they have all of those things and just pick them up at one store you can't really do that so much here you know you need to close you actually need to go to a store that sells clothes you need your body wash and shampoo and showering stuff you need to go to the drugstore to get that you need your prescription pharmacies here aren't attached to grocery stores or drugstores like they are at home so you need to go to a separate pharmacy you need your cleaning supplies you need to go to the drugstore where you would get your shower and stuff again and do that so I mean that's one trip but like you have to take multiple trips to satisfy the needs that you have sometimes we do miss the convenience in America but I do find that I spend less money on things that I don't need here and I'm more conscious of my waist having to think about those things makes me more aware of what I'm using what I'm buying it's important okay the second thing that I noticed about America because it's moving abroad is that we have so much diversity for some more backgrounds I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood right outside of a major city I went to a public school and the entire time that I was in school as a kid I was surrounded by people who looked different than I did after high school I went to a university that I think prides itself on having a group of students that are so diverse and they really encouraged conversation and cultural expression and I am thankful that I was exposed to not only people who are different than me as a child but as a malleable young adult and I think that that was a really valuable experience that I took for granted living here I have noticed its kind of homogeneous there's a lot of people who look the same you don't see people of color as often as you do in America and I think a byproduct of that is that people don't have the conversations that we do in the States and I think that we sometimes assume that everyone is living in these spaces where there are people that are different than them and that's not true number three isn't necessarily about America but just about the English language in general which I know is not an American invention don't come from in the comments I realized in moving abroad and having most of my daily interactions being with people who don't speak English as a first language that English and the meaning of what you say in English is heavily reliant in the way that you say it let me give you an example I'm gonna put a sentence here and today I want you to try something and I'm gonna give you a second to do it I want you to in your head or out loud I don't know do you feel like talking to a screen today that's what I'm doing I want you to try and that sentence in your head emphasizing each different word okay I'm gonna give you the time now ready set go [Music] okay sorry [Music] okay are you done good the meaning of the sentence changes based on which word that you place the emphasis on this is something that is learned by native speakers and causes a problem when you're having a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak it natively professionally for me I definitely encountered it but I do think that it poses more of a problem in my personal life with people that I'm like at the bar with or when I'm having a conversation with my boyfriend he doesn't speak English natively he speaks English wonderfully but sometimes two people are talking and it could go one of two ways it could either stay friendly and be a nice conversation about a difficult subject or somebody can react there have been times when I've been having conversations with non-native speakers and they put the emphasis or strain on a part of their thought that conveys a message that they mean it in a rude way and sometimes it's really hard to not react to it you have to like develop this sort of patience and understanding of like this person is not speaking their native language they are just trying to convey a thought in a way that makes the most sense to them it's difficult it's tough the way that those tonal changes might work in their language is different from English so they've got these two conflicting understandings of it and it could cause a problem and it's hard especially in conversations with people who were close to you that you're trying to not get into a point with in quarantine I don't know it's a real thing number four this is the one where I think I'm gonna piss people off um number four Americans have a very particular brand of patriotism that I think is really specific to us I have come to believe that it is very performative meaning that we are doing it for other people to see I don't know if it's for other Americans or for the rest of the world but we're doing it for other people to see my examples are threefold one the Pledge of Allegiance it's a weird thing we'll revisit that too our flags are everywhere you don't see that so much when you go to other places and number three the whole like America thing so let me start with the Pledge of Allegiance I vividly remember going to the bar with some friends who were not American and having a conversation that somewhere ended up talking about the Pledge of Allegiance I think I might have asked like yeah what's your pledge of allegiance but like what do you guys do and they all really what are you talking about so I went on to explain what the pledge of allegiance is when we do it how we do it who does it and people were like yeah that's weird thus came a slew of questions and criticisms so let me just firm I imagine I'm I don't know everything so there might be other places where people do things like this [Music] but the majority of the world does not have their children recite something in the morning pledging allegiance to a country people find it strange and it is a very performative act and that's all I'm gonna say about that because I really don't want to offend anybody any further so the second thing that I mentioned under this heading a performative patriotism is flags everywhere you go to other places and you don't see that as much people don't fly their country's flag out front of their home it's not in front of every building and I remember noticing that when I first came to Europe as like a younger teenage IV like where all the things I don't see them an observation nonetheless I think it's pretty telling the third thing that I mentioned was the whole like marker state of mind which I think it's like heavily tied to masculinity and proving to people that you like love your country and these strange t-shirts with like George Washington with a mullet and a bandana and Ravens and an explosion and a gun and a hotdog and an eagle like leash you don't see that in other places and people identify Americans as being these intensely patriotic people and it's it's true we have this very specific way of expressing that we love our country and it's just different than what other people do on one hand I get it America for a lot of people symbolizes hope and the importance of working hard and changing your life but having lived abroad I don't necessarily understand the intense performative aspect when it comes to our patriotism I don't wanna piss any more people flat you'll fight as high as you want to fly them if that's what works for you to do it okay I'm just done on the Internet the last thing that I have realized since moving abroad can be explained by a metaphor or simile I'm an English teacher and I still can't remember that difference hire me for lesson um I want you two in your little noggin to imagine a coconut and a peach coconuts have this hard exterior you have to do some work to break the open it takes some time and some effort and then you get inside and it's sweet and nice and enjoyable peaches on the other hand are kind of the opposite right away you got a nice juicy peach it's sweet its soft its enjoyable and then on the inside you've got this hard pit that you can't really do anything with American people are like peaches right when you need them usually are very nice very welcoming very sweet and enjoyable but you get past that initial niceness and there's not much in the middle it gets kind of hard and you kind of it's a heart can't really penetrate it where I live check people are like coconuts got to work real hard to get it open but once you do it's really nice and enjoyable I have noticed that in my professional life and in my personally when I tried to like make friends with some Americans here I've gotten the niceties upfront and then it gets a little cool it's a little bit harder to develop that friendship checks or other Europeans that I've been exposed to you guys do a little work up front and then they're really sweet III don't think that one is better than the other I think that they both have pros and cons but I will say that as an American living abroad sometimes I really do miss people like smiling at you on the street and asking you how you are and just have a conversation with strangers in the line for the groceries or at the post office one of the great things that I always hear about Americans because trust me I hear a slew of negative things about Americans once people realize that I am American is that we are so nice and people love it just as an example my boyfriend is Czech I went home to visit his parents for the first time the report that he got back was that she's she's very nice she's smiling all the time because that's what we're taught to do in America and it's strange here but it's nice and it makes people happy it's a very American thing to be so outwardly happy and it's nice I miss it I like both I like coconuts I like peaches I like to eat basically so those are my five things this is kind of make I can do word these sit-down videos if anybody has any suggestions we'll take that little elevator down to the comic books and let a know okay yeah have a great day [Music]

Channel: Gwen Wiess

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Rating: 4.9153438 out of 5

Keywords: american expat, czech republic living, expat, weird things about the usa, us vs europe, us vs czech republic, us vs prague, expat living in czech republic, expat living in prague, expatriate, expatriot, gwen wiess, living abroad, living in czech republic, living in czech republic expat, living in prague, prague expat, prague living, moving to czech republic, american speaks czech, americanka mlvui cesky, cesi v usa, ceska americanka, american learns czech

Id: zIXtI3ERkRE

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020